Slovakia’s Lubos Nemec & Adrian Petruf achieved a historic success for Slovakia. Not only did they bring their country’s first ever Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour medal, but they also topped the men’s podium at the Nuvali Futures in the Philippines to claim gold. Eylon Elazar & Kevin Cuzmiciov of Israel and Olivers Bulgacs & Markuss Graudins of Latvia joined them on the podium with silver and bronze. New Zealand’s Shaunna Polley & Olivia MacDonald earned their team’s first Beach Pro Tour gold. Japan’s Sakura Ito & Mayu Sawame took the women’s silver and Lithuania’s Ieva Dumbauskaite & Gerda Grudzinskaite grabbed the bronze.

30-year-old Nemec and 22-year-old Petruf reached the Nuvali final undefeated, on an impeccable run of four straight-set victories, crowned with a 2-0 (25-23, 21-10) semifinal win over Olivers Bulgacs & Markuss Graudins. In the final, the third-seeded Slovakians lost their first set of the tournament, but still emerged victorious with a dramatic 2-1 (21-15, 18-21, 19-17) upset of second-seeded Eylon Elazar & Kevin Cuzmiciov.

For the Israeli pair, it was the second consecutive Beach Pro Tour podium, after their triumph in Songkhla last month, and fourth overall medal on the Tour. On the way to their final encounter with Nemec & Petruf, Elazar & Cuzmiciov also swept all four of their matches in straight sets. In the semis, they outplayed seventh-seeded Dimitrios Chatzinikolaou & Stavros Ntallas of Greece in a 2-0 (22-20, 21-11) sweep.

Bulgacs & Graudins, who started their Nuvali campaign from the qualifications and were seeded 10^th in the 16-team main draw, achieved a 2-1 (21-15, 19-21, 15-15) victory over Chatzinikolaou & Ntallas in the third-place match to collect their first Beach Pro Tour medal as a pair.

29-year-old Olivia MacDonald celebrated her first Beach Pro Tour gold. In partnership with 31-year-old Shaunna Polley, who had already picked up a couple of those, they earned their first medal as a team, cruising through the Nuvali event on a winning streak of five wins while dropping only a set along the way. The third-seeded New Zealanders managed a 2-0 (21-10, 21-19) victory over Romanian qualifiers Beata Vaida & Francesca Alupei in the semifinals and a 2-0 (21-18, 21-14) sweep of the final against Sakura Ito & Mayu Sawame.

In their semifinal, the seventh-seeded Japanese duo put together a 2-1 (21-17, 15-21, 15-13) upset of second-seeded Ieva Dumbauskaite & Gerda Grudzinskaite and also secured their first Tour medal as a team.

The experienced Lithuanians recovered from their first setback of the tournament with a nail-biting 2-1 (21-19, 19-21, 19-17) victory over the 11^th-seeded Romanians to claim their second bronze on the Tour together and the duo’s first podium in almost three years.

24 men’s teams and 24 women’s teams representing 19 different countries took part in the Nuvali Futures. Two Futures stops will take place concurrently this week, from May 8 to 11 – a double-gender event in Cervia, Italy and a men’s tournament in Madrid, Spain.

Nuvali Futures: all results and standings

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